A Fangirl lives a thousand lives.

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Monthly Archives: August 2014

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The Liebster Award is a blog award that one receives from another blogger. In order to be nominated you must be a newer book blogger. Once you’re nominated, you get to nominate other book blogs.

The Rules:

Link and thank the person who nominated your blog.

Answer the questions they asked you.

Pick eleven bloggers with less than 200 followers to nominate.

Ask them eleven questions.

Let them know by commenting on one of their posts.

* * *

I was very kindly nominated by the lovely The Writing Hufflepuff (go check out her gorgeous blog!) here are the questions that she asked me and my answers:

If you could live in any book, which one would you live in and why?

This is probably quite an obvious answer but it really is the truth – Harry Potter. If I had to pick a specific book from the series it would most likely be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as it is my favourite. I could eat ice cream sundaes at Florian Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, I could use the Marauder’s Map to sneak into Hogsmead, ride on a Hippogriff and give those Dementors what for by learning the Patronus Charm with Lupin! Being at Hogwarts would be a (childhood) dream come true. Oh and I’d get to see Hermione punch Draco Malfoy!

Read some brilliant books this month, The Bunker Diary was a really gripping read, Since You’ve Been Gone was a perfect summer read and Phoenix Holt – flawless work from Gabriella Lepore once again.

Please forgive all of the children’s books, it’s all been in preparation for my PGCE and I have to confess that, whilst it is technically work, I have really enjoyed reading them. Howl’s Moving Castle was a particularly good read.

Books read: 18.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer. E. Smith.

On Monday I begin my preliminary placement, two weeks observing and assisting in a primary school, before my university course starts on Monday 15th September. I am going to be so busy! I’ll be at the school from 8.30am – 4.30pm, I’ll write up my notes and ‘reflecting’ when I get home, try to fit in a couple of workouts a week, try to read and blog. I don’t know if there are going to be enough hours in the day but I’m sure going to try and fit everything in.

I feel as though I will be living a bit of a double life. I have my normal day-to-day life as a trainee primary school teacher with lots of work to do, notes to write up and lessons to plan. I also have my life as a blogger and it’s important to me that I manage to keep them both running smoothly.

“One drowsy summer’s day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for ‘asylum’. Decades will pass before Holly understands exactly what sort of asylum the woman was seeking . . .

The Bone Clocks follows the twists and turns of Holly’s life from a scarred adolescence in Gravesend to old age on Ireland’s Atlantic coast as Europe’s oil supply dries up – a life not so far out of the ordinary, yet punctuated by flashes of precognition, visits from people who emerge from thin air and brief lapses in the laws of reality. For Holly Sykes – daughter, sister, mother, guardian – is also an unwitting player in a murderous feud played out in the shadows and margins of our world, and may prove to be its decisive weapon.”

Cloud Atlas was such an intriguing and genre-bending story of multiple fantastical strands. It left me reeling for days afterwards. I had so many questions, about the story, and also about my approach to life. It was a magnificent read and since then I have been looking to read more by David Mitchell. Bone Clocks caught my eye a month or so back it sounds incredible. I am expecting a rich plot with well defined, multi-dimensional characters and settings. I have a feeling that this is one to watch.

“When Sophie Ballester and her twin brothers Sam and Todd are uprooted from their home and sent to a remote boarding school run by their Great Aunt Ness, they stumble upon a hidden room that holds a secret—a secret that will change everything. The people of Phoenix Holt are not what they seem. In fact, nothing is.”

A brief summary:

New to Phoenix Holt, Sophie and her older brothers Sam and Todd have more than a strange place to adapt to. They have acquired a relative whom they did not know existed, their Great Aunt Ness, and a secret family legacy; they are witches. This lack of knowledge about their magical heritage leads to trouble. By mixing potions, unsupervised, in Aunt Ness’ apothecary, the Ballester siblings attract the unwanted attention of Devillions; the demon monsters which track witches to consume their essence and thus their power.

Yesterday was one of the most amazing days of my life. A real childhood dream came true – I went to Hogwarts!

For my birthday back in July, my Mum bought 3 tickets for Warner Bros Studio Tours in London – The Making of Harry Potter. This was one of the best presents I could have received. Those of you that have read my blog from the beginning, follow me of Instagram or Twitter, will know that I am Harry Potter crazy and have been for the majority of my life.

The first Harry Potter book was released when I was 5, I read it when I was 7, and I completely fell in love with the magical world of Harry Potter and his adventures at Hogwarts. Since then I have read each of the seven books at least 4times each; The Philosopher’s Stone, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Deathly Hallows more like 5 or 6 times each, they’re my top three. I have fond memories of the book releases, the movie releases, when shops first began selling Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, the coins that you could collect at Asda if you had enough tokens (anyone else remember those? Did you complete your set?). In a nutshell, Harry Potter was my childhood and has been a huge part of my life since I read the first book.

I have been wanting to go to the tour for years and I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that I would probably never get to go. When Mum told me that she had booked tickets I actually cried! For a 22 year old that may seem a bit pathetic but it’s the truth. For the last month my excitement has been building, on Sunday I could barely say Harry Potter or Warner Bros without my face cracking into a big, goofy grin. My fiancé thinks I’m nuts (though he was insistent that I got him a Chocolate Frog!)

“The Works 3 really does include a poet a week – that’s 52 poets and 364 of the best poems of all time. It provides a fantastic variety of forms and styles and all manner of subject matter.

There are ballads, riddles, tongue-twisters, sonnets, shape poems, raps, narrative verses and haikus; it contains poems about seasons, festivals, animals, birds, love, war, life and death, food, fish and football, to name quite a few. And there is a biography of each poet at the beginning of his or her week.

It is another essential book for teachers, but also a joyful celebration of poets and poetry, which readers will return to again and again.”